Sunday
Jun072015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Annoying ad
Jun 7, 2015 I appear to have been hacked and readers are seeing an annoying floating ad. I'm attempting to deal with it. In the meantime, blocking scripts from igooglefile.com seems to help.
Reader Comments (34)
In case it helps fyi I only see the ad if I access the site via www.bishop-hill.net through one of my bookmarks.
Don't see it if I access via squarespace
It's for a hair product, maybe a sarcastic hacker 8)
Omnologos,
At least not a shirt.
The ad and related popups are pretty annoying, I'd assumed it was coming from squarespace.
Anyway it's pretty funny, you currently have the hockeystick of ads on the internet.
(I blame any typos on the annoying box bouncing around the screen!)
Same here, only see the ad on the .net site.
It looks as if the DNS settings on the domain have been altered.
It's the grammar as much as anything. "We focus on every details". Self-evidently not.. :)
"We focus on every details"
Sounds like a great summation of the entirety of Climate Science!
Gone now. (This is on .net)
Getting the ADblocker extension from Google also handles it.
Tony.
Thanks Bishop, good to be back to normal service.
I was seeing an annoying ed.
but he's gone now
Still affecting .net for me. As you say it looks like a DNS hack: it sems that they redirected the site to a server which serves a copy of the squarespace site but with the ad pasted on top, and with links redirected to the hair product site.
Isn't the idea of advertising to encourage people to use your product. Surely an ad that pisses everyone off is going to have the opposite effect. An ad for hair products is going to be wasted on me anyway, I'm as bald as a billiard ball.
Thanks Bish!
Noscript, Adblock and Flashblock keeps my Firefox crisp and clean.
I got adblock plus which has enhanced my online life by 76%. Worked out well for me.
"An ad for hair products is going to be wasted on me anyway, I'm as bald as a billiard ball." --Stonyground
God created only a certain number of perfect heads. The rest, he covered with hair.
Re Stonyground
> Surely an ad that pisses everyone off is going to have the opposite effect
The 97% it pisses off are irrelevant, it's the 3% that really matter.
jferguson:
That rules out Monckton as the culprit.
http://www.vohair.com/ are the perpetrators!
In Ubuntu/Firefox, right click on the add; choose 'inspect element', then in the inspection window which appears at the bottom of the page, choose 'delete element'. This will get rid of the annoyance -- at least until you jump to the next page.
No seeum at my end.
Blocking Unwanted Connections with a Hosts File
Still getting it on my Nexus tablet.
For Android there is NoRoot Firewall which should allow you to block the spammers - it's also useful for blocking those apps that want all your data for reasons that appear to have nothing to do with the functionality of the app itself......
Well, I thought it was gone from my system ... but, alas I was mistaken :-(
So here I am (via Chrome on my new [not yet fully equipped with compatible versions of my apps] Win 8.1 machine) back at http://bishophill.squarespace.com/ hoping against hope that this shameless aggrannoyance has not succeeded in infecting my system (and my iPad)
This, btw, is after investing almost 2 hours of my time on Saturday with my ISP tech support [transcript available on request!] educating him and (obviously unsuccessfully) attempting to find some solution which would block and/or cast this illiterate and illegitimate little demon out of my view (and systems??!)
2 observations
- Yes it seems like a virus. Someone should tell the hair company not to pay the bill for their clickperview advertsing as some hacker has found this trick to divert traffic to their page.
#2 it may cause bishop-hill to be blocked as a site hosting malicious software ..possibly the hackers aim.
bishophill.squarespace.com - seems OK
www.bishop-hill.net/ took ages to load ..and the floating ad came back on first click
For the record ... Just accessed (with considerable trepidation, I might add!) bishop-hill.net via my (very old and now very slow) Win 7 ultimate machine (which uses a different anti-virus program: McAfee here and Avaz there) and have not seen it.
@stewgreen ... thought also occurs to me that haircompany may not be legit either, simply a "front" designed solely for malevolent purpose(s). To my mind, squarespace should be on constant alert for such b*stards which could affect/infect their users (and visitors to their users sites)
As Bish says - it's looking like a DNS hijack
see HERE - it'll likely take a while to get straightened out as the DNS database is updated..... Squarespace servers were iirc in New York and not in Asia-Pacific.
Not sure what the hairco has to gain - something more malevolent further down the line? Effin irritating it is 'tho.
I removed it by right clicking on it and applying the adblocker I use. Certainlt gone now.
The floating ad is gone after blocking it pics and scripts from igooglefiles.com (note the plural), but links on the page are also hijacked. I'm going to use my firewall to block that domain.
I saw the floating ad earlier today from a Windows computer. Now on linux I don't see it. Both running Firefox with Adblock Plus. I hope it is gone for good.
Jun 8, 2015 at 12:03 PM | tomo
What actually happened? Does the redirected IP just inject the ad and then redirect back to the original page? I doubt they would mirror the original site?
Optimist
"I was seeing an annoying ed. but he's gone now"
You'd think so, but it didn't stop the Today programme from wheeling him* in this morning to discuss the G7 proposal to do away with fossil fuels. They must have been pretty desperate.
*Assuming you meant Davey, of course. I'd forgotten about the other one.. :-(